Verse 323

Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation by Ganganath Jha:

विविधार्थक्रियायोग्यास्तुल्यादिज्ञानहेतवः ।
तथाविधार्थसङ्केतशब्दप्रत्ययगोचराः ॥ ३२३ ॥

vividhārthakriyāyogyāstulyādijñānahetavaḥ |
tathāvidhārthasaṅketaśabdapratyayagocarāḥ || 323 ||

In fact, things are capable of diverse fruitful actions;—they are causes of the notions of ‘similarity’ and the best;—and they are amenable to conventional verbal expressions connoting such things.—(323)

 

Kamalaśīla’s commentary (tattvasaṃgrahapañjikā):

Question,—“If it is so,—i.e., if there is no such substance as ‘Soul’, apart from the ‘Successive Factors’,—how do the distinctions of Number etc. come about?”

The Answer is provided in the following—[see verse 323 above]

The ‘fruitful actions’,—of the ‘successive factors’. Colour etc.,—are ‘diverse’—of various kinds—distinguished as similar and dissimilar;—the ‘similar’ actions arc the Holding of water and the like, and the ‘dissimilar’ actions are the colouring of cloth, the bringing about of visual perception and the like;—of these actions, the ‘Successive Factors’ are capable. Thus is the compound to be analysed. As regards the ‘similar action’, all the ‘Successive Factors’ are used simultaneously; hence in order to indicate their common causal efficiency,—even though there is no common identical Substance permeating through them, and even though they are different from each other, yet—they are spoken of by means of the single term ‘Jar’, as being one in number; and when it is intended to indicate the dissimilar specific actions of each of the ‘Successive Factors’, they are spoken of by means of words expressive of the plural number;—it is in this way that the diversity in number, as also diversity in action (purpose) is explained.

“How then is there diversity of characteristics?”

They are causes of the notions, etc. etc.—The things, Jar e.g., become ‘causes of notions of similarity’, when under all conditions, of baked, unbaked, etc., they are conceived of as ‘Jar’ and ‘Jar’ only,—being apprehended as objects of indeterminate cognitions;—as even though they are destroyed every moment, they are produced at each succeeding moment as particular things, but of similar shape. But when they become produced in the different colours of dark, red, and the like, they become ‘causes of notions of dissimilarity’, Thus even in the absence of any simple comprehensive entity permeating through them, the things become the causes (basis) of notions of similarity and dissimilarity, and thereby come to be regarded as ‘comprehensive’ and ‘exclusive’ in character; and thus the diversity of character becomes established.

The term ‘ādi’ in the compound ‘tulyādi’ is meant to include the ‘atulya’, ‘notions of dissimilarity’,

“To what then is the diversity in Name due?”

‘They are amenable etc.’—‘Such things’,—i.e. things like Colour, which are capable of diverse fruitful actions and are causes of notions of similarity and dissimilarity; such things form the ‘object’—connotation—of such conventional verbal expressions as ‘Jar’ and ‘Colour’ etc.; and the said things are amenable to such verbal expressions (names).—(323)

Thus what is proved by Perception is the fact that things are without ‘Soul’,—this is what, by way of recapitulation, is pointed out in the following—[see verse 324 next]